INTERVIEW: Oswaldo Valle of Ecuador’s Flagship Science University

OSWALDO VALLE OF ECUADOR’S ESPOL TECHNICAL COLLEGE AMONG DELEGATES IN IRELAND

Oswaldo Valle is the head of the faculty at Espol University. He is part of a delegation from Ecuador’s flagship technical university, including Edouardo Montero and Florencio Pinela, attending a conference on STEM learning techniques.

What do you think of Ireland? Have you had time to “settle in” while you’re here?

I’m fine, thank you. The weather is very similar to a city where I come from, Ambato, which is known as the land of fruits and flowers.

What is your mission here in Ireland at the international conference?

We come to Ireland, as a team of three from the university, and our primary goal is to present a project to the international physics community whereby learning processes – at third-level in scientific subjects – are different to the traditional methods.

While the rest of the team present their research, as chief of the faculty of Espol, I came with the express and complementary purpose of getting in touch with academics, possible partners and collaborators to see what possibilities there are to organise an Espol-hosted congress in October 2018 in Ecuador. We also plan to host this congress over our 50 year-anniversary. I’m very positive in my hopes to coordinate with teachers, masters and doctoral researchers, and PhDs. We can look into opportunities for cross-collaboration, the sharing of research and projects, and international deals involving travel between universities and third-level institutes.

Have these endeavours been successful?

I must say that yes, we’ve done our job successfully. It’s time to entice the world overseas our ESPOL University in Ecuador, which is in perfect condition to organise a Physics and Learning Methodologies event, on a global scale.

I found that at this conference, for example, there are many professionals who could contribute in our event. As I said, we’re aiming for an October 2018 congress, over the course of ESPOL’s half-century celebrations. Such an event is also of course a great way for our university to receive international recognition because we have all the elements to do that, we have the infrastructure, teachers of talent, projects and qualified people of whom we are very proud.

Find out more about the peer-learning project that ESPOL brought to Ireland at the link.